gloves as part of the skater's costume

i haven't watched as much skating as most in recent years, but to my eyes it seems more skaters are wearing gloves these days.

can someone help me understand how this phenomenon's come about? i haven't seen one pair of charming gloves since josee schouinard's american in paris program. and that's despite my adoring dai and his hip hop swan lake to pieces.

gloves ruin the line of the arms, even when it goes with the story like katia gordeeva's umbrellas of cherbourg program i still don't like them. YMMV, but i'd still be interested in opinions of how this has come about (other than the ones i can come up with, like, it's cold in the rink).

thank you everybody for the thoughtful comments. johnny is so glorious... but i think he's more beautiful without the gloves. the things i fell in love with in his skating are better shown-off by programs that don't require costuming quite so elaborate, IMO. again, YMMV.

sokolova? i liked her sit spin very much, back in the day. i must say i'm not feeling the vibe in that outfit you linked there.

i'm aware skaters wear gloves during practice, i'm aware it's cold in the arena, but they (the women usually) don't cover up their legs during the actual competition--they pretend they aren't out there freezing their butts off, and smile, and sometimes even convince us they're into the performance and not freezing, not stressing out about their next jump passage. i wish that more skaters felt that showing off their beautiful arms and hands was worth the sacrifice of feeling that chill in the fingers for 4 - 5 minutes. i don't find adelina sotnikova's purple hands contributed anything to her line, just because her sleeves were the same color. i also think her odette would be better w/o black gloves, but that's just me. i'm weird ^_^

What a fascinating question! And I can't wait to investigate all the links.

I love the way Sarah Meier carries off costuming. She's one of the few who can wear a cat suit type of costume and not look too overdone in it. She just has natural elegance to my eye, as well as the perfectly proportioned figure for such things--not too little, not too much.

I have a vague memory that Sarah Hughes wore gloves in my favorite program of hers, the exhibition (or pro) program to "Bye Bye Blackbird." That was also my favorite costume of hers.

Someone famous for his elaborate costumes--Alexei Urmanov. Didn't he wear gloves at least once? His approach wasn't glitzy in the Johnny Weir performance-artist sense, but more in the Bolshoi stage costume sense, much like many of the Russian ice dancers. I had a soft spot for Alexei: such a classically pure line as I recall, and seemed like a real gentleman, but hampered by injury rather early. Anyone know what he's doing these days?

I haven't noticed that more skaters are wearing gloves, but then I haven't particularly been paying attention to it.

If that's true, I'd guess one reason might be that there's more blade grabbing going on these days, and thus more need for even feeble protection gloves would provide against cutting one's hand.

that's an excellent point. i won't use this thread to rant about blade grab death spirals

but i also want to ask, since olympia brought up urmanov--i always liked him also--i used to wish that he and natalia mishkutenok would live happily ever after, since artur made her cry and all--was alexei urnamov responsible for popularizing gloves? come to think of it, natalia wore a body suit, but not gloves, for their famous liebestraum program, my favorite pairs choreography of all time. that was a very famous death spiral with the blade grab. i'd hate to think M&D had something to do with the epidemic but maybe they have some responsibility to bear, along with urmanov.

so was urmanov the one who really put gloves on the map? was it dai with his techno hip hop swanlake? johnny with his theater on ice? who were the gloved icons whom the younger skaters looked up to?

are those same pioneers choreographing these days, handing young skaters programs complete with costumes?

I had a soft spot for Alexei: such a classically pure line as I recall, and seemed like a real gentleman, but hampered by injury rather early. Anyone know what he's doing these days?

He used to train Voronov until last season, now he has a bunch of russian Juniors, including Polina Agafonova, Gordei Gorshkov and Bush who got silver in Russian Championships
He also skated in the Anniversary of Mishin Show.